


And I Would Walk Five Thousand Miles

by FreezingKaiju



Series: i hear thunder and raise my umbrella high [3]
Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Body Horror, Gratuitious Cameos, Kaworu Reincarnation Theory, M/M, More Relationships to be added, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Other Friendships Will Be Added, Pining, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-12
Updated: 2020-03-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:42:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23113390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreezingKaiju/pseuds/FreezingKaiju
Summary: Kaworu wakes up in somewhat of a different Kaworu-body than usual, and finds finding Shinji less of a cakewalk than normal. With the help of a mysterious talking cat who seems to know more than she lets on, he'll commit several felonies and a few terrible decisions on his search to find his beloved Shinji and maybe, for once, get to stay.
Relationships: Ikari Shinji/Nagisa Kaworu
Series: i hear thunder and raise my umbrella high [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2033542
Comments: 5
Kudos: 15





	And I Would Walk Five Thousand Miles

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter Summary:  
> Kaworu incarnates yet again, takes stock of his body, meets The Cat, steals a wallet and eats some curry. 
> 
> Tags for this chapter in specific: Gun, Lemon Demon, References to Medical Experiments, Eyes, Teeth

It always started the same way. A tug on his leg, a prick of light in the blackness, a melody slowly growing in his ears. The melody was different, every time. The tunnel of light would be, too. He remembered each perfectly... tragic, that his favorite was one that lasted so short. Kaworu was used to tragedy, however.

The tug returned, twice, then three times and he was plummeting, the darkness opening to his soul’s unclosable eyes, violet eyes and lightning bolts and swaths of water spinning across Kaworu’s vision, fish he’d yet to see that gave way to claws and teeth and eyes, eyes, a circle of milky drowned eyes spiraling around Kaworu as the melody grew harsh and he desperately wished he could close his own. The voice of Gendo Ikari screamed at him, words that blurred together of his death, of heaven, of some career, of synthesized blood and organs, synthesized heart and soul—

And then, with a shuddering stop, Kaworu’s vision returned to darkness.

The melody faded, and the voice turned... gentle. Not Gendo’s. A different man’s voice, one he felt he should recognize, filled his ears with a dulcet reassurance:

“ _ Fill up your lungs, _ ” —Kaworu drew a shuddering breath, the simple respiration prompting a smile— “ _ feel better. _ ” He didn’t feel better, but... he was beginning to  _ feel _ .

“ _ Look, _ ” Kaworu’s eyes snapped open, “ _ it’s you. Good as new. _ ”

“ _ New hands, _ ” he relaxed his death-grip on his own arms, “ _ new throat _ ,” he drew another breath, “ _ new living tissue! _ ” His body shuddered, toe to tip; reassuring that he still had those pieces.

As Kaworu braced himself against whatever he was lying on, the voice in his head proclaimed, “ _ You earned this! New purpose!” _

“Lifetime achievement award,” he harmonized with the voice. It took that moment to die down, now that he was breathing, functioning. He supposed at this point he  _ had  _ lived a lifetime. Many of them, really, but perhaps a lifetime in total.

No time to reflect, though. He had to figure out where he was.

Sliding off the slab that he was laid as quietly as possible, Kaworu stopped to take stock. Large tubes of liquid —LCL? Could very well be— lined a back wall, providing the room’s little light. They were large enough to store more than a full human being; one was open and empty. The other walls were lined with cupboards, with tables, racks of things he didn’t quite know the name for but he could guess at the scientific or surgical nature of. 

The slab he had been lying on... was an operating table.

Kaworu could feel his grimace spreading further than usual. He needed to make an escape. 

\---

The stars were beautiful tonight.

Kaworu wasn’t in the right place to appreciate them, he had just snuck into a sideroom of whatever facility this was.  _ NERV, most likely.  _ A stroke of luck that this was at night. He hadn’t even seen any night security yet.

He couldn’t stay in this —bathroom? Judging by the sinks and stalls, yes, bathroom— for long. He needed to keep moving. But... a once-over of the new body couldn’t  _ hurt _ .

Kaworu took one look in the mirror and flinched. “Oh dear.” Buzzed-down hair, a terrible look for him. Some sort of scars all along his head too, maybe from electrodes or a device of that nature. He instantly missed his wispy, flowing mane. 

Second realization, this may have been his tallest body yet. He always matched Shinji’s age, and this one looked...  _ distinctly _ young adult, or late high school. Taller still, though. The long arms and legs were something he’d need to get used to. 

  
He smiled. Same charm, as ever. Good. A smile with teeth, though?

He peeled back his lips for a wider smile, then frowned. His teeth were... to put it simply, bad. Gleaming interlocking pearly whites, looking perfect for gnashing the meat off a bone, not shooting a charming smile. He shuddered.  _ Like an EVA’s. Frightening. _

His hands felt tense.  _ I shouldn’t waste my time preening, _ he thought, raising his right hand in front of his face. The nails were sharp. For some reason he had an inclination to flex his digits.

His fingers spread apart... and instantly shot out, a foot long each, sharpening themselves into points in the blink of an eye. His hand had practically the spread of a full shield now, or a bat’s wing. Kaworu was startled, but not enough to make a noise. He focused instead on  _ un _ flexing his hand, and it returned to a regular —albeit longish— shape.

“Shinji-kun can never know,” Kaworu muttered, knowing in what passed for his heart that Shinji would find out. As he always does. These weren’t hands that deserved to hold Shinji’s.

—-

A shiver ran up Kaworu’s body. The clothes he had managed to steal were quite ill-fitting; he had snagged a suit jacket with much-too short sleeves, and the jeans he’d swiped were likewise high up enough they might as well be flood preparation. 

This, of course, meant that he had wandered into Tokyo-3 more exposed to the night air than he’d prefer.

He  _ assumed _ it was Tokyo-3. No chance yet to check, but it felt familiar. Not quite, though. Maybe it was Tokyo-2.

He was, in a way, used to the towering buildings of Tokyo-3, whether they were cutting-edge architecture or crumbling rubble, they were a constant. He rarely considered the fact that there were homes around it; he supposed, in fact, he rarely considered ordinary people in general. In a sense, an angelic trait. A pilot’s, too... maybe it was just the view of those who stood on high, gazing down at humanity. Perhaps those in penthouses thought the same. 

Still, it was hard to think of the destruction and monstrosity that came with the EVA Units and his own kind here. He knew he shouldn’t, but Kaworu found his eyes being caught by the smallest things. How soft the grass looked over a short fence, and how easy it would be to hop it and roll around a bit. The houses, uneven and windowed, soft and welcoming were it not for the shaded windows. Bicycle trails, old roofs, sidewalks worn not from explosions or giant footsteps but from the wear and tear of years upon years of humans walking along. 

As he observed the scenery, his eyes happened to glance upon something moving across a wall’s edge. Kaworu stopped, and it stepped into the glow of the streetlight; a cat, curiously deep-red, but decidedly a cat. 

“Why hello, my feline friend,” Kaworu greeted the intruder; he hadn’t much experience with cats, truly, but he’d always found himself fond of the animals. So close to humans, yet aloof, yet loving all the same. In a sense, enviable. 

The cat’s aquamarine eyes widened, shone in the dim light, and it took another step towards Kaworu. Opening its mouth and displaying its teeth for a half-moment, the cat... _spoke_. 

“You.”

_ I suppose at some point this had to happen.  _ “Me?” Kaworu asked the verbalizing feline.

“You! You’re the Fifth Child!”  _ Oh no. _ The cat pounced down from the wall, landing squarely in front of Kaworu. “Don’t look quite like a child... but you’re him!” It spoke with a slight German accent... or maybe all cats did, and he had just never bothered to listen.

“You’ve got me cornered,” Kaworu said, rolling with the punches so to speak. “And who might you be?” He took a moment to recollect the usual names of his brethren, and recited, “Sachiel? Shamshel? Ramiel? Gaghiel? Israfel? Mata--”

“IF!” the cat cut him off, “If you say  _ one more name _ that ends in ‘el’ I’ll bite you. I will. I’m not a cat, but I’ll bite you all the same.”

“...Sandalphon?” Kaworu asked with a smirk, adding a sweepingly apologetic bow when the cat’s tail continued to swish behind it. “Apologies, you do seem quite feline. Aside from your speech.” 

“Apology accepted,  _ Fünfte Kind _ .” The cat tilted its head up at him. “You know where the others are, I assume?”

“How... do you even know of them?” Kaworu stooped down, getting his head a little more level with the cat’s; even so, he was still splayed like a cricket that stole a uniform and decided to become a real boy.

“Nyegh.” The cat looked away, her ears twitching back momentarily. “I just...know somehow. I’ve found you, you’re the Fifth Child. I need to find the other five. Simple!”

“We could help each other,” Kaworu decides, without stopping for even a second to consider distrusting the talking cat.  _ It would be nice _ , he reasoned,  _ to have an ally for once. Perhaps a friend. _

“...” The cat seemed to raise an eyebrow. “You’d risk that?”

Kaworu tilted his head.

The cat continued, “You sure you can trust me? On a whim?”

“I live by whims,” Kaworu responded. “By the seat of my pants, and by love!” he declared.

The cat let out a yowling laugh. “I like that! You’ve got a deal! Let’s... let’s, um...” She trailed off, then slunk back, ears suddenly pressed against her head. “Um. Fifth?”

Before he could open his mouth, Kaworu felt the cold barrel of a gun tap the back of his head.

“Think fast?”

—-

It occurred to Kaworu only when he had already sat at the coffeeshop’s counter that maybe cats weren’t to be allowed in an eating establishment. 

  
Not out of any sort of sign or a verbal command, no, more how the -- _ Chef? Bartender? _ Kaworu’s train of thought derailed momentarily as he tried to recall the usual term for a coffeeshop employee-- how the  _ barista _ , yes, how the barista was staring at him. Hopefully he didn’t have a bruise from the scuffle earlier. He was lucky to get away with a wallet, a kick in the head and the scream of a terrified man, rather than a bullet in his head and an utterly wasted life.

Kaworu gave the tousle-haired teenager his usual smile, not as warm as the ones reserved for Shinji but a try for welcoming. “Apologies, is it the cat?”

“Oh, no,” the barista responded, taking a moment to realign his glasses. The way they shone struck Kaworu as quite the unwelcome reminder. “You’re not my usual red-eyed mystery customer.”

“Ah.” Kaworu rolled that piece of information through his head, as he and The Cat studied the barista for a moment, who went back to cleaning a mug. “Sorry to disappoint, then. I’m quite new in town. I hope a black coffee is an acceptable order here?”

The barista chuckled. “If it wasn’t, the old man’d kill me. You want curry with that?”   
  
_ Curry? _ Kaworu leaned forward in his seat, intrigued. “I’ve yet to sample curry. Are mushrooms an option?” He recalled enjoying a mushroom salad Shinji had shared with him, some time and lives ago. 

The barista paused, and walked over to a cabinet, checking his ingredients as methodically as an amateur chemist would check their formulae. “Still enough left. Mushroom curry for you, then? And I can whip up something for your friend there.”

“If he gives me cat food, I’ll kill him,” The Cat grumbled, somehow  _ angrily _ laying down on the counter.

“Fish, most likely,” Kaworu said, an attempt at reassurance that she hopefully wouldn’t take as a promise.

“Fish is good!” The Cat responded, as if she was stating a fundamental truth of the universe. “Mushrooms are... edible for you, maybe.”

“They’re sentimental.”

“Do you base every meal on sentiment?”

“Why yes.”

“That’s no way to live.”

“I don’t exactly have the money to experiment.”

“Fair point. That guy’s wallet couldn’t have had much in it.”

“Nine thousand yen or so. Sizeable, but... not much in the long run.”

The strong aroma of coffee reminded Kaworu where he was, and he looked up to see the barista smirking at him. “Apologies for the disruption. I’ll stop—“

“I talk to my cat too, it’s fine,” the teen responded. “Have some coffee, though, and sorry on the finances.”

“It’s alright. Our goal is... likely in sight,” Kaworu responded perhaps more elegantly than necessary. “By the way, would you happen to have a computer I could use, if I’m not being too presumptuous?”

“Nope, sorry,” they responded as they set down two simmering plates of curry, a spoon and fork beside the larger one. “There’s an internet cafe a block that way,” they said, pointing vaguely to their right, “But it’s closed until, like, nine in the morning.”

“Thank you anyway,” Kaworu responded, and dug into his meal with a proper amount of decorum. 

Tomorrow, then, they’d figure out where Shinji was.


End file.
